I was at a tiny gun show last Saturday,,,
I saw what I thought was a British .303 on a table.

It didn't have the easily recognizable magazine,,,
And it was chambered for 410 Shotshells.

The old boy who had the table couldn't say much as to it's pedigree,,,
He repeated what he was told by the man he bought it from,,,
That it was a "training gun" before WW-II.

Anyone ever see or read about something like this?

Aarond

PetahW

December 8, 2010, 11:03 AM

FYI - RFI in India and SAF Lithgow in Australia both produced single-shot conversions of the SMLE (.303 Short Magazine Lee Enfield) chambered for a .410 shotgun cartridge.

The .410 conversions made by Ishapore were generally used as riot shotguns for crowd control in India, and were originally chambered for a 2" British .410 brass shotshell, basically a blown out .303 British cartridge.
These cartridges have not been manufactured for decades, & ammunition is available only through handloading.
Many of these conversions have been reamed out to accept modern 2½" and 3" .410 shotshells in the United States.

The SAF Lithgow/Slazenger .410 shotguns were, however, chambered for commercial .410 shells, as they were primarily intended for civilian sale, with over 7,000 eventually being manufactured.

As the pressure for even high velocity .410 ammunition are well below standard .303 British pressure ranges these conversions, when done by a competent gunsmith, are deemed safe to shoot

Numerous attempts were made to convert the various single-shot .410 shotgun models to a bolt-action repeating model by removing the wooden magazine plug and replacing it with a standard 10-round SMLE magazine. None of these is known to have been successful, though some owners have adapted 3-round magazines for Savage and Stevens shotguns to function in a converted SMLE shotgun.

.

aarondhgraham

December 8, 2010, 11:10 AM

No matter how obscure the firearm,,,
Someone in here always knows something about it.